A chairde,

Im studyin gaeilge and im about to write a small essay (about 3p) on auxiliary verbs in irish. I know what an auxiliary verb is, obviously, but we've never really gone thru them as....auxiliary verbs. I have no idea how to write this essay, and ive read Ó Siadhails 13 or somethin pages on the topic but that one is mainly about dialectal differences. any advice? basically what to say about irish auxiliary verbs, I need it very very soon.
Thanks in advance,
slán
Linnea

But is it really obvious? Bí certainly looks like an auxiliary on the basis of expressions like Tá mo ghadhar ag léamh do leabhair, which superficially has the same syntax as the English equivalent "My dog is reading your book". But this begs the question of whether léamh is actually a lexical verb or some other part of speech.

One difference between expressions involving léamh and those with the undeniably verbal form léigh is that the latter takes an object in the nominative-accusative (e.g. Léigh mo ghadhar do leabhar) whereas the argument of léamh is actually in the genitive, i.e. léamh do leabhair "reading [of] your book" has the same syntax of the nominal phrase clúdach do leabhair "the cover of your book".

And the resemblances don't end there. Léamh can also take an article (e.g. Bhíodh an bhéim ar an léamh agus ar an scríobh[.] "The emphasis would be on the reading and the writing[.]") and can't be negated in the same way as prototypical verbs (e.g. Ní léann sé é "He doesn't read it" but *Tá sé ag ní léamh do leabhair). So is it really a verb or isn't it? And if it isn't, what does that make bí?

i just meant I know what it is as a grammatical term, not necessarily in gaeilge. I just find this very complicated, and all I find in Ó Siadhails text is sentenses with auxiliary verbs in them, showin dialectal differences.
I just need som basic information about auxiliary verbs in irish, or maybe just some advice how to put this essay together...cos I can't find any consistant information on the topic...and it's not supposed to be on a very advanced level, i do b-level at the mo.

sorry that was me

Linnea

When you say "Ó Siadhail's text", I assume you mean his Learning Irish, since there is no Chapter 13 in his Modern Irish: grammatical structure and dialectal variation. The latter is a true reference grammar, whereas Learning Irish is nothing more than a textbook for self-study and thus doesn't delve into the underlying grammatical issues in any detail.

He tackles auxiliaries in Chapter 11 "Complementation and modal and auxiliary verbs". As you can see from the title, he distinguishes "auxiliary verbs" from modals like caith, féad, and glac. (Other analyses would consider modals a subtype of "auxiliaries".) He doesn't go in detail on this choice, but the chief distinguishing feature he identifies is that "unlike modals, [auxiliaries] do not tend to be defective" (p. 293). That is to say, they can generally be used in all tenses and such whereas, e.g. caith only has a modal function when used in the conditional.

As you might expect, bí is one of his auxiliaries because of its role in what he calls "periphrastic aspectual phrases", e.g. those formed with ag + verb-noun like Tá sé ag léamh. Another is déan because of its role in substituting for other verbs, e.g. Séard atá mé a dhéanamh, ag péinteáil doras "What I am doing is painting a door". Among "other auxiliaries", he lists tabhair (e.g. B'éigeant do an diúltamh do thabairt di "He had to give her a refusal"), lig (e.g. Lig sé béice "He let out a yell"), and caith again (although with different syntax, e.g. Chaith sé báisteach mhór aréir "It rained heavily last night").

A Dhomhnaill, "léaghadh" is not a verb, it is a verbal noun. Now the question if "tá" is an auxiliary verb - I think so, just think of sentences "tá áthas ort". And then you always have perennial copula which is a kina verb in my opinion, and certainly auxiliary.

quote:

e.g. caith only has a modal function when used in the conditional.

Are sure about that? Caithfead dul ann -> this is not conditional, but rather future tense. And you can even have habitual present (in Munster at least): Caithim dul ann gach lá. "I be must go there every day"

A Dhomhnaill, "léaghadh" is not a verb, it is a verbal noun.

Well, that's the question, isn't it? "Verbal noun" (more usually "verb-noun") is a conventional term in Celtic linguistics for this form, but names don't tell us what something is. After all, the traditional label for "up" in such expressions as "put up with" or "stop up" is "preposition" but that's not what part of speech this is and knowing how "up" works in phrases like "up a tree" will not shed any light on how "up" works in "stop up".

What I'd like to see is an analysis that determines the parts of speech in Irish according to sound principles of syntactic argumentation. Ó Siadhail's Modern Irish doesn't do this. The results could be different for each variety--after all, the example Séard atá mé a dhéanamh, ag péinteáil doras (not dorais) from Ó Siadhail implies that the verb-noun might be more "verby" in that (Connacht) variety than it is elsewhere.

Now the question if "tá" is an auxiliary verb - I think so, just think of sentences "tá áthas ort".

Again, just as "up" can be a preposition in one context ("up a tree") and a verbal particle ("stop up") or locative adverb ("up there") or even a verb ("Don't up the ante on me!") elsewhere, tá could well be an auxiliary in some contexts and a full verb in others, just as "is" is in English (e.g. "Beauty simply is" vs. "It's all been said before").

One common definition of "auxiliary" (and the one I was using above) defines it as a finite verb that appears in conjunction with a non-finite lexical verb. According to that view, tá can't be an auxiliary in tá áthas ort because the predicate does not contain an additional verb (lexical or otherwise).

I think modal verbs are a distinct class only in Germanic languages, where they are construed with infinitive without to (I can read a book versus I love to read a book) and resemble in formation the past
(I can, he can, ich kann, er kann
like I took, he took, ich nahm, er nahm
not like I take, he takes, ich nehme, er nimmt)

In other languges there is no syntactical difference to "normal" verbs as

Je sais lire un livre versus J'aime lire un livre
Я могу читать книгу versus Я люблю читать книгу
Librum legere possum versus Librum legere amo

And in Irish you have certain circumlocutions such as "Tá a fhios agam" and normal verbs like toiligh.

So the question may be, how do you translate an (English) modal verb to Irish, which treats these modifications quite differently.

Concerning auxiliaries, these are, I thought, helping verbs to build analytic forms of the conjugation, like be and have in English, habe, sein, werden in German, ser, estar and haber in Spanish.
In Irish you form present, past, future, conditional, past habitual, imperative, subjunctive without the additional help of another verb
If you count the construction of the progressive action as a tense like in "Tá mo ghadhar ag léamh do leabhair"
tá is an auxiliary.

PS. Is there a personal passive in Irish (I know only the autonomous form à la buailtear). If you can form one with the Verbal Adjective in the way of "He is/gets beaten", you may have there another auxiliary, but I am not sure.

quote:

And then you always have perennial copula which is a kina verb in my opinion, and certainly auxiliary

You mean "is" (the Irish one)? A copula is a linking verb beween subject and predicate without any further verb in the sentence.
An auxiliary verb needs another verb whom it helps (from Latin "auxilium"), ie change its function in the sentence, so I won't be so sure about "is"

I know all this is mainly about nomenclature, but I fear a category, which works well in one language, does not work well in another (and we have mainly to adapt conceps of latin and greek grammarians to languages, who fancy their own ways)

thanks, i did mean "Modern Irish: grammatical structure and dialectal variation" though, he deals with auxiliary verbs for 13 pages, but mainly with dialectal differences. Ah well, I didnt know he mentioned them in "Learning Irish", I have that one, so Ill just check it out.
pretty complex topic this one..

Yes, in the construction "tá ag" in standard Irish the verbal noun is treated as a noun with an attribute in the Genitive, but in Connacht it seems to be felt as a still functioning verb with an object.

In Mac Congáils "Irish Grtammar Book" the Genitive is also only prescribed as "usually".

I think particles like up are only prepositions, if they are followed by a prepositional phrase. In phrasel verbs they lost their power to reign over a verb and only modify the meaning of the verb. It's only a speciality of English, that you don't put them always as a prefix before the verb (as in withdraw, overtake, update etc.) but can put it afterward as a particle. So in put up with up is not any more a preposition than in update.
In the same way, nearly all auxiliaries can be proper fullstanding nouns (I think haber in Spanish don't), the question is, which can ALSO function a auxiliaries.

That is the reason why most grammars differentiate between morphology (Wortlehre) and syntax (Satzbau)
In morphology up is a preposition and léamh a verbal noun, but in syntax they may be a manifold of things.

In morphology up is a preposition and léamh a verbal noun, but in syntax they may be a manifold of things.

Personally, I don't think this is true. If up were "morphologically" a preposition, then there would be no way to explain a form like upped where it takes an ending associated primarily with verbs (including participles), secondarily with adjectives (e.g. blue-eyed, where the second element is clearly not derived from the participle of the verb eye "make eyes at; spy"), but not at all with prepositions.

Yes, in the construction "tá ag" in standard Irish the verbal noun is treated as a noun with an attribute in the Genitive, but in Connacht it seems to be felt as a still functioning verb with an object.

Cf. Colloquial German als er ein Lied am Singen war vs. formal Standard German am Singen eines Liedes.

My two cents is that all such questions cannot be answered with respect to syntax and the identifiable elements in language.

Perhaps an understanding of how meaning is 'grounded' will need to be added.

A personal thing I have noticed is that 'bites' of any speech sequence can be more or less defective (that is form by ostensible rules and flexion-able) and that the more defective the more likely to be more frequently used (irregular verbs) or for modal or personal type expressions. After all, proverbs break rules all the time, but are understood.

All I'm saying is don't discount sterotypification of forms and how meaning can be ascribed to anything independent of it's form. If meaning was 100% form dependent, we would not have collocations, and the meaning of one sentences would be reducable back to it's individual words, which is not the case.

PS. Is there a personal passive in Irish (I know only the autonomous form à la buailtear). If you can form one with the Verbal Adjective in the way of "He is/gets beaten", you may have there another auxiliary, but I am not sure.

Yes, the so-called "passive-progressive" form, e.g. Tá tigh nua dá thóigeáil "A new house is being built", Tá sé dá fhágáil ina dhiaidh "He is being left behind". An agent can be supplied with ag, e.g. Tá tigh nua dá thóigeáil acu.

A Dhomhnaill,

I don't agree with you on many accounts. I do not want to wish arrogant, but the point of reference and comparison for many Irish people is only English - a language rather poor in grammatical structures. That is why the grammatical analysis offered by people versed in English grammar is as non-profound as their point of reference. I will take up some of your points:

quote:

"Verbal noun" (more usually "verb-noun") is a conventional term in Celtic linguistics

Verbal nouns exist not only in Celtic language. In fact, they exist in vast majority of languages, it seems it is only English of European languages that does not have them. Think of Russian читание, мытьё, резание etc or Latin cantatio, portatio etc all of which denote a progressive process and are derived from verbs.

Verbal noun is not a "verb-noun". "Verb-noun" is a diffuse word category that exhibits the traits of verb and of noun at the same time, the most obvious example of "verb-nouns" is infinitive in many languages. Verbal noun, on the other hand, is a normal noun with all characteristics of a noun (declension, gender, governing other noun through genitive), it is only connected to the verb through its own derivation process, i.e. semantically.

There is nothing "verbal" about Irish verbal nouns except for their meaning. This fact is highlighted very well by the existence of nouns used as verbal nouns although the expected verb simply does not exist. Some of those verbs (like in the case of feitheamh) have fallen into disuse, but for the other, more astonishingly, the corresponding verb did not ever exist in the first place. Think of word "caint" or "obair" which are staples of Irish language and are just ordinary nouns used in the same way verbal nouns are employed.

quote:

but names don't tell us what something is.

Bhuel, they do. Verbal noun is exactly what its name says - a noun derived from verb. Just for your information, Slavic languages have also verbal adjectives (which are not the same thing as participles).

(Message edited by róman on April 02, 2008)

quote:

tá can't be an auxiliary in tá áthas ort because the predicate does not contain an additional verb (lexical or otherwise).

This is again very Anglo-centric view of grammar. Celtic languages are not exactly like other Indo-European languages in that they are noun-driven, not verb-driven. In sentences like "is maith liom bainne" there is no verb at all, and such sentences could not possibly exist in English at all (commands like "down!" have a verb implied). If we look at the sentences "is féidir liom fanúint anso" - we see a sentence where 2 nouns are connected by a copula, although Anglo-centric people again would see 2 verbs here, although there are none over here.

"Tá áthas orm" is exact equivalent of "I rejoice" in English. And a noun "áthas" carries the same semantic weight as "rejoice". It is not a hard fact that the language has to revolve around verbs, there are languages (Inuit?) that don't have verbs sensu stricto at all.

quote:

I think modal verbs are a distinct class only in Germanic languages

Grammatically, maybe. But semantically no. Modal verb is defined as verb which is expresses not an action or state like a normal verb, but speaker's attitude towards it. Based on that there modal verbs with the meaning "I want", "I can", "I must" in almost any language.

quote:

where they are construed with infinitive without to

This is denied by the existence of English "ought to".

quote:

how do you translate an (English) modal verb to Irish, which treats these modifications quite differently.

I think that is the crux of the problem: people try to find 1:1 relationship between English and Irish words and anything not fitting into nice scheme is brushed below the carpet as "idiom". On that count language as different from English as Irish is one big "idiom".

One must translate the meaning of English sentence, not word for word. "Is féidir liom" means exactly the same thing as "I can", but this still does not prove "féidir" be the same as "can".

quote:

A copula is a linking verb beween subject and predicate without any further verb in the sentence.

Don't you see an oxymoron in this definition? "A verb that links ...without any further verb". How many other "linking" verbs that operate "without any further verb" you know? I have even read such treatise where Irish copula is called "a set of particles", and there is nothing there to prove otherwise. Irish copula does not have the very basic characteristics of any verb - it is void of meaning, cannot be substantivized, has no derivation from it etc.

quote:

Yes, in the construction "tá ag" in standard Irish the verbal noun is treated as a noun with an attribute in the Genitive

Because it is. Verbal noun can function without "ag", also and can be used with other preposition - "do":

Is féidir liom an teach do dhéanamh (CO: a dhéanamh).

Actually, that "do" is used mainly in Munster, and there they may say "is féidir liom an tigh do dheineamh" (I know you know, Róman, it's just for the others :-) ).

"do" per se is not used in Munster, and nobody would SAY 'do' there, although some people may write it. On the other hand, the current "a" used across all dialects is nothing but an unstressed form of the same "do".

(Message edited by róman on April 02, 2008)

Furthermore, sorry I did not remember this sooner - verbal nouns in Irish are declined. Masculine verbal nouns slenderize in genitive ól - óil, and feminine (there are not many of those) ending in -ach have -aigh in dative (following ag). I will not remember the Irish example now, but it is "bellowing" (spelling?) of cows. This can be seen in Munster volume of LASID very well, there is a sentence "The cows are bellowing" somewhere near the beginning. I remember I could not find the verbal noun following "ag" in the Ó Domhnaill's dictionary from the transcript given in LASID, before I realised that the verbal noun is ending in -aigh in the sentence, and I must look for -ach in the dictionary, which I duly found with (f.) note.

A Róman,

I do not want to wish arrogant, but the point of reference and comparison for many Irish people is only English - a language rather poor in grammatical structures. That is why the grammatical analysis offered by people versed in English grammar is as non-profound as their point of reference.

You may not want to, but you do--or at least somewhat presumptuous. I speak fluent German and I have also studied Korean, Welsh, and Old English on the university level (not to mention linguistics). So, as it turns out, I do have rather more points of reference than simply modern English.

There is nothing "verbal" about Irish verbal nouns except for their meaning.

As I said, that may be true for some varieties (such as Munster) but not others--just as it is true of gerundives in some varieties of German but not others. How do you account for ag péinteáil doras in Ó Siadhail's example?

there are languages (Inuit?) that don't have verbs sensu stricto at all.

Tosh! Treating of "nouns" and "verbs" as universal cross-linguistic categories is as Eurocentric as can be. What all languages share are syntactic means of expressing predication. Whether the forms that predication can be usefully divided into "nominal" and "verbal" types is a language-specific question.

What Inuit and other Eskimo-Aleut languages lack are a formal distinction between nominal and verbal morphology comparable to that found in the Indo-European languages. Whether you describing this as "not having verbs" or "not having nouns", the choice is equally arbitrary (and equally uphelpful from the point of view of elucidating Inuit grammar).

Getting back to Irish, I'm intrigued by the fact that you consider the copula to be something besides a verb as I've never come across that sort of analysis before for any language. If you have some time, could you explain what you think it is and why you think so?

quote:

"do" per se is not used in Munster, and nobody would SAY 'do' there, although some people may write it.

It is used in Munster, because I heard it (by a speaker from Muskerry). And I'm sure I read it in some dialect studies and in the Linguistic Atlas too.

I'll have a look later and tell you about it.

I do enjoy reading all this, even though it's a wee bit too advanced for me sometimes....but, could I say "bí" is an auxiliary verb together with a verbal noun?
Tá sé ag obair
as well as
Níl an crann in ann fás,
or whatever?

A Weelollo,

That's the question, isn't it? For Róman, the matter is settled: The clause Tá sé ag obair has exactly the same syntax as, for instance, Tá sé ag fear "A man has it". We don't say that fear here is anything other than a noun, so what sense does it make to say that obair is anything other than a noun either? People are simply confused because the English translation is "He is working". But, really, a syntactically analogous English expression would be rather "He is at work", where work is a regular old noun that just happens to have a homonymous associated verb.

I admit, it's a very strong argument, but I'm not 100% convinced. However, I'm not well enough versed in Irish to come up with good counterexamples. Ó Siadhail isn't much help here, as he ultimately seems to justify treating the "verbal noun" as a verb form on purely morphological grounds, to wit "Yet despite all the similarities, since almost every verb has an associated verbal noun and adjective, it must be dealt with as part of the inflectional system of the verb." (p. 195)

A Dhomnall,

thanks for that.
I know, Ó Siadhail is usually not very consistant at all, but/and he's very narrow minded when it comes to the so called verbal nouns.
Anyways, I'll try to sort this out.
Go raibh maith agaibh everyone

Another question....if you say for example "tá mé ag goil ag foghlaim Spáinnis", what does that make the 3 different verbs?..tá must still be an auxiliary, right? but what does ag goil represent? Can you have 2 main verbs or 2 auxiliaries?

Ok, I have found them, the bloody bellowing cows I mean.

The sentence is:

Tá na ba ag géimnigh, where géimnigh is a dative of verbal noun "géimneach".

Now, if someone still believes Irish verbal nouns be "verbs", then how can you comment on the fact that such a "verb" can be in dative case? Surely, verbs don't have cases, do they? Furthermore, such rare words just demonstrate vividly what happens to other verbal nouns after "ag". I mean not only "bellowing of cows" are in dative, in fact ALL verbal nouns are in dative following "ag", just in the case of other words there is no way to tell those datives apart from nominative. As you may remember dative of masculine nouns looks exactly the same as nominative, and in the case of feminine nouns you need it to end with a broad consonant to see the slenderization.
There are not many feminine verbal nouns to start with, even less with a broad consonant, but those few we have show unambiguously - we are dealing with dative here.

To sum up, translation "I am working" is deeply confusing as it distorts the grammatical essence of the Irish "Táim ag obair". "I am at work" makes for much more adequate grammatical equivalent.

Actually think about those sentences:

Tá sí sa scoil. Tá sí ar scoil. Tá sí ag obair.

Are they really different as far as grammar is concerned? Does "tá" mean something different in all 3 cases? I do not believe so.

quote:

tá mé ag goil ag foghlaim Spáinnis

Spáinnise, I believe.

This sentence is a direct translation of English "I am going to ...", thus, I would not try too hard to find any Irish logic here as it is English, not Irish logic at display. English itself has borrowed the idiom from French, I believe: je vais étudier l'espagnol.

The native Irish idiom would be different:

Táim chun Spáinnis a fhoghlaim - if it is you who decided to study.

Táim le Spáinnis a fhoghlaim - if you are made to study by somebody else

well, i meant "i am going to learn spanish", as in the language, but it doesn't matter..that was just an example. what i was wonderin is what you would call the 2 different verbs apart from tá...in the case of auxiliaries.

The ado was caused by the dialectal form "ag péinteáil doras" (I repeat dialectal)

"The painting of the door" is

Τὸ τὴν ϑύραν χρίειν (Akkusative object in Greek)
Das Steichen der Tür (Genitive object in German)

The German would be like CO Irish, the Greek like Connacht Irish.

(Yes I know, a substantival infinitive is not a verbal noun, but you have both Russian, but in Irish the latter usurps the funcion of the former and yes, you can put the Greek expression in the dative by changing the article. And there you have an article with cases, so it can't be a verb, but you have an direct object, so it can't be a noun, so what? Frontiers are sometimes blured.)

That the Slaves construe only "cztenie książki" in the same way as "léamh leabhair" is a lucky parallel, but not prescriptive for Irish.

Surely it is gramatically purer to use the verbal noun only with a genitive (We both like prescriptive grammar, aren't we?), but in German I also continue to say "Ich bin die Tür am Streichen" (although that's not Standard and although I am definitely to lazy to do that!)

quote:

Irish copula does not have the very basic characteristics of any verb - it is void of meaning, cannot be substantivized, has no derivation from it

"is" has tenses (is present versus ba past) and moods (is indicative versus gura subjunctive) That is more than most particles can say of oneselves.

Yes, it is a bit defective, but many often-used verbs in languages are.

Why does a verb have to have a distinct meaning? (You see, which meaning has "haber" in Spanish? It has lost its old meaning of "have" (have is "tener") and is now used only to form the perfecto etc., but it is a fully conjugated verb.

(Message edited by ingeborg on April 02, 2008)

"The German would be like CO Irish, the Greek like Connacht Irish. "

Well Conmara has a weakened genitive, so can we read much into that?

Exactly, I agree. If Conamara has weak genitive - how can anyone prove that in "ag péinteáil doras" "doras" is not in genitive? Anyway, as I understand that was not the issue. I think the reply is found in the usage of "Dé Luain" instead of expected "Luan" etc. The speakers are used to the weekdays with "Dé", so even when don't need Dé (like in "The Mondays are fine"), some still keep Dé. Something like this has gone to its logical conclusion in Manx, and there weekdays are always with Dé (or whatever they spell it: Jay?).

Now regarding copula. I know it has tenses (actually just 2), but so has question particle "an" - "ar", this does not prove anything. The abnormality of copula in comparison with other verbs is proven by the sentences like:

Go BÁC atáimíd ag dul. Mise Róman.

There is no other verb that could be regularly left out. I do not see really how grammatically different can copula be in comparison with question or negation particle.

I didn't see a single auxiliary verb in this page. I think there is a difficiulty is swapping a concept about English straight into Irish. An auxiliary verb is a helping verb that helps another verb: I am going to do it. But given that verbal nouns (which are nouns) are employed in Irish, I am not sure Irish has auxiliary verbs. There have been none mentioned in this thread anyway.

I know, and thats why i found it so difficult to write an essay on this....because of the verbal nouns...but Ó Siadhail calls them auxiliary verbs in his "Modern Irish: grammatical structure and dialectal variation", for about 13 pages. Only dialectal differences though, not really any explanations...

Strictly speaking there are no "auxiliary verbs" because there are no other verb forms (infinitives, participles, gerunds) but only (verbal) nouns and adjectives.
But ...
- Tá sé ag ceannach an leabhair.
- Tá an leabhar ceannaithe aige fós.
- Déanfaidh sé an leabhar a cheannach.
... what's "tá" and "déanfaidh" here if not auxiliary?
The real "action" of these sentences is - more or less - buying the book, not being or making. "Tá" and "déanfaidh" only provide some nuances of this action. They "help", don't they?

Lars

I have seen "auxiliary" defined in such a way that it can designate verbal forms with purely non-verbal compliments. Some analyses of Turkish grammar, for instance, refer to the Turkish copula (which sometimes appears as a bare inflectional suffix on a noun) as an "auxiliary".

Whether such a usage is appropriate for Irish or whether it simply distorts the grammar to make it seem more familiar to speakers of SAE (Standard Average European) languages is a another question.